The last day of Austin City Limits Festival, we began to see the sun’s toll on the mass of the great unwashed. Lots of three-day old beards, starving children running naked in puddles, hippies eating barbeque out of desperation. Humanity was holding on by a very expensive and thirsty string by five o’clock yesterday afternoon.

No fires Sunday. Just a lot more oldsters coming to see Dylan. I saw a few Zimmy tats, too. From what I could tell, most people started camping out in the morning when the gates opened. DeVotchKa wasn’t magical as I thought they would be. It was a very jerky and constricted set. Robert Earl Keen served the Texas Country crowd with a smile. I got watch Billy Joe Shaver hanging out in the media tent, doing a radio interview. He only shot like six of us.

My Morning Jacket and Wilco played pretty much the same spot in the early evening. The audience was split down the middle. You had a brainier crowd heading to see the Jeff Tweedy experience, and another one just wanting to watch MMJ’s tropical-themed set. MMJ’s came onstage, preceded by beach-combers in metal detectors and sunscreen-slathered noses. These guys have always been hard to pin down. They have such an expansive sound, which just echoes off the atmosphere, but then they can get very subtle and morose. Their intricacies led you to think jam band, but Jim James can howl like Neil Young with Crazy Horse. I would like to think it’s “jam-metal.” I have always been a fan of their breakthrough album It Still Moves and they played plenty tracks off of it.

All in all, a very nice weekend. It’s just a shame that Bono didn’t show up, as was the rampant rumor. He still owes me for buying Pop with my allowance. – Craig Hlavaty